New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has a job approval rating of 50%, with 42% saying they disapprove of the job he is doing as governor, a new Monmouth University Poll of New Jersey residents found.

These numbers are similar to Monmouth’s last New Jersey poll in August, but they remain slightly more negative than at the start of Murphy’s second term (55% approve and 35% disapprove in April 2022).

The shift in Murphy’s rating over the past two years is due largely to an increase in the number of independents who disapprove of his job performance – 49%, up from 35% two years ago – while independent approval has gone down to 43% from 51% in 2022.

The governor’s rating has been more stable among both Democrats (83% approve now and 86% in 2022) and Republicans (79% disapprove now and 77% disapprove in 2022).

Murphy gets somewhat better reviews for managing state finances than for his policy priorities. More than half (53%) of state residents say the governor has done a good job managing New Jersey’s finances over the past six years, while 43% say he has done a bad job.

However, only 25% say Murphy’s program priorities are in line with their own priorities for how the state spends its budget. Nearly half (45%) say Murphy’s priorities are too liberal for them and another 18% feel Murphy’s priorities are not liberal enough. Not surprisingly, 81% of Republicans say the programs Murphy emphasizes are too liberal for them. They are joined by 53% of independents in this view. Among Democrats, 50% say Murphy’s spending priorities are in line with their own, while just 11% feel they are too liberal and 27% feel they are not liberal enough.

“The prevailing opinion is that Murphy does a decent job keeping an eye on the books, but there is disagreement on where he chooses to focus his efforts. This is more of a general sense about his priorities than a specific critique of any given policy, given that few New Jerseyans actually follow the budget process,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The poll was conducted by telephone from February 29 to  March 4, with 801 New Jersey adults and has a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percentage points.